Just under a year ago I left the USA. Permanently, I hope. Two months prior to today I was released from a two week stay at a hospital. I had severe, undiagnosed chrons disease and, due to massive hospital closings, I couldn’t see a doctor for nearly three months. When I finally did I was almost dead. I weighed 90 pounds when I got in (about 41 kilos), I’ve always been rather skinny, usually fluctuating between 130-140, but goddamn, I was a walking corpse. Those months prior were pure agony, something between a fever dream and being a plaything of a Cenobite.
I eventually recovered and got put on disability. Disability income in America is a joke. If you earn more than $800 a month you lose all your benefits including insurance. The income itself barely covered the medications I need, let alone anything else.
I was lucky enough to be able to stay with my mother and save money while my body recovered after the hospital. I got myself a passport and left that godforsaken country for somewhere that disability income would be worth more than a masturabatory gesture.
Sada živim u srbiji.
The first few weeks here the biggest adjustment was the availability of organic food and it being cheaper than processed foods. I felt like I had never tasted real food in my entire life. Even Wholefoods tasted processed in comparison to the $3 pack of chicken thighs available at the local shop n go. People here are always surprised when I tell them about how much better it is here.
“But America is the land of hope and dreams”
Yeah, hoping you can afford to buy dinner, dreaming you can see a doctor without ending up in debt.
The free healthcare here isn’t by any means the best, but people don’t die because they can’t afford insulin. If you’re a citizen most medications are free or extremely inexpensive. I’m not a citizen, I don’t have prescription coverage and the medication that cost me 1800 a month in the US after insurance is 80 a month with no insurance. Also the cheese here is better than the best coke in south florida.
~Macka